Misty Sullivan, who says she was attacked with a hammer by Frank Thompson Monday night, demonstrates what he looked like when he stood outside his door brandishing a gun after she escaped his apartment. (Haas/Democrat photo)

DOVER — Misty Sullivan, who was attacked by Frank Thompson Monday night, sparking an hours-long police stand off at the Fairfield Garden Apartments that resulted in his death, said Thompson had been obsessed with her.

She said this obsession began since she started visiting her father and mother-in-law at the apartment complex more regularly a few months ago.

Sullivan, 32, of Dover, said she was recently divorced and Thompson started acting strangely around her as far back as the beginning of this summer.

“About a month ago I told my Mom, 'He's going to kill me one day,'” Sullivan said. Now out of the hospital with five sets of staples in her head, she recounted exclusively for Foster's all of the signs she should have looked for before going to Thompson's door Monday night to ask for some sugar.

“Two days before he hit me with the hammer he said, 'I was going to check the obituaries for you.' When I asked why he laughed,” Sullivan said. “When I was here with my boyfriend he got really mad and started throwing stuff around his apartment someone told me.”

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Misty Sullivan shows some of the injuries she suffered Monday night when she was attacked by a neighbor who later died during a standoff with police. (Haas/Democrat photo)

Sullivan said that when Thompson opened the door Monday his boxer shorts were twisted off to the side and he said he rushed to put a T-shirt on.

“I went in to the kitchen table and he went to the food pantry to get some sugar. He came back and said, 'Here, put half in.' (the container she was holding) So I'm sitting in the chair at the table and he walks around me. I assume he is going to the bedroom or bathroom. All of a sudden I am pouring the sugar and I feel a crack on the top of my head,” Sullivan recounted.

Sullivan said she asked Thompson what he was doing. When she looked back she saw him standing over her with a hammer.

“He hit me, bam! Again in the head! Then bam! Again in the head!” Sullivan said. “I was knocked out of the chair and was on the floor crying, 'Leave me alone!' I have bruises all over my body from where I crawled to the door on my side. He had no remorse, it was just like I was saying, bam, bam, bam. He hit me six times. I finally made it to the door.”

Sullivan said she almost gave up hope that she would get out of the apartment alive once Thompson pulled his Glock 9 out and pointed it at her. But then she thought of her children, a son who is 16 and a daughter who is 14, and decided she would not allow Thompson to take her away from them. With what she described as superhuman strength she escaped the apartment and ran across the hallway to where Lisa LaRose and her husband Ralph live.

LaRose said she called 9-1-1.

“I heard her yelling after a few minutes. She was standing there crying with blood on her face,” LaRose said.

LaRose and her husband watched as Thompson stood at his doorway with the gun. She said he started waving it around in the hallway but was startled when she yelled at him, “Frank! No!”

“I think it clicked for a second,” LaRose said.

LaRose quickly shut her door and attended to Sullivan's head wounds. Thompson went back into his apartment and barricaded himself inside.

Police officers came for Sullivan and took her out the back doorway of Building One on Norway Circle. LaRose escaped her apartment through the window. She said she would like to thank the firefighters who helped her out.

“I had to go face first down the ladder and they were on each side,” LaRose said. “I have got fibromyalgia and to do that in the kind of pain I am in is something.”

LaRose said she has lived in the Fairfield Gardens for 24 years and never suspected any of her neighbors would behave so violently.

“It's horrible looking around and seeing all of the holes,” LaRose said of the holes left behind from when Thompson exchanged fire with police.

There are at least three bullet holes around the doorframe at the entrance of Apartment #6, where Thompson lived.

There is also what appears to be a bullet hole in the window of the back door to the building, just down a few stairs away from the apartment entrance.

The Attorney General's office has not yet released the results of Thompson's autopsy. The man, who was in his late 40s or early 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police issued a press release at 3:55 a.m. Tuesday that said, “The suspect is deceased and the scene has been deemed safe.”

The attack was reported to police at approximately 7:25 p.m. Monday. Residents of the building were evacuated immediately. A short gunbattle between Thompson and the police was heard from Plaza Drive approximately ten minutes after officers arrived on the scene.

Capt. Bill Breault of the Dover Police Department said no officers were injured in the exchange of gunfire, but Foster's learned one of the Dover police officers had a bullet hole in his pants, indicating a close call.